Friday, 25 January 2013

In which there is singing and eating

We had a delicious set of results from that cooking class-- little did we know that we would be following the afternoon's big meal with an gigantic feast/hospital staff party!  We drove to the far outskirts of HCMC (45+minutes?) to a restaurant the size of a couple of football fields, owned by a family member of the hospital staff. 




The kid table

Lots of the therapists brought their kids! Some kids we first met 8 years ago--
it's great to see them growing up!

soft-shelled crab

Great insistence that we sing karaoke. To our relief, there was a separate English-language songlist. We rejected "Unchained Melody" in favor of "Summer Nights" from _Grease_.
Notice that once we started, no one made eye contact with us. It was not my finest karaoke moment.  

Giao, the head of the department, has a great singing voice.
I was able to get through the chorus of Lionel Ritchie's "Hello",
which the rest of the hospital therapists could do better than I could










And then, there were presents given out to everyone! More on that below....

We drew numbers for presents, and Stacy and I were mysteriously the only ones that received little pouches with hair ties in them. Everyone else got utilitarian gifts, like toothpaste, cooking oil, or shampoo. I suspect there was a little tinkering with the numbers on the presents!

















no , not an aquarium-- these were fish available for consumption

ginormous prawn


octopi

The waitstaff use bicycles and roller skates to get around the premises!




an artificial lake in the middle of the restaurant

Definitely a happy party

Trung and daughter karaoke








I am grateful that Sai Gon beer is around 4%, and that Vietnamese parties typically wrap up by 9pm



Giao and Stacy talking shop

in a taxi, looking at Saturday night traffic on the way home

Coming up-- our last 2 days in HCMC, including our lectures....






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